Motives behind using vehicles in attacks vary

Asked whether Monday’s incident in Toronto was a terrorist attack, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale declined to speculate.

“We cannot come to any firm conclusions at this stage,” he explained. “The police are conducting their thorough investigation into what happened and why it happened.”

But as the public grapples with the toll of one man’s collision with pedestrians on Yonge Street, speculation is hard to avoid.

Why was security at Monday’s Maple Leafs game in Toronto ramped up? Why were emergency rooms treating victims on lockdown? Were the RCMP involved in investigations?

Dan Brien, communications director for Goodale, added to the minister’s earlier remarks only to say that local authorities determined how much security was needed at Toronto venues, and that RCMP were being looped into Toronto Police Services investigations but, at press time, Monday’s events were still considered a criminal matter.

An act of terror or not, the seemingly deliberate use of a vehicle as a weapon brings to mind similar events that have been making headlines around the world.

In early April a man with a history of mental illness killed three people in Munster, Germany after he rammed a van into a crowd outside a restaurant.

In December, a car plowed into Christmas shoppers in Melbourne, Australia, killing one and injuring at least 18.

The driver, an Australian citizen of Afghan descent, had a history of mental health problems and drug use. Police said there was no evidence that terrorism was linked to the incident.

But using vehicles as projectiles has become a signature for extremists.

Last week, a Palestinian man was charged after ramming his car into a group of Israeli soldiers, killing two.

India’s Home Minister Rajnath Singh warned military personnel two weeks ago that vehicle ramming attacks by individuals had become a serious challenge for security forces. “We have seen across the globe that a big vehicle is being Two people comfort each other in Toronto after a van mounted a sidewalk crashing into a number of pedestrians on Monday. used by such elements to mow down people,” he said.

According to the Counter Extremism Project, a non-governmental organization that monitors terrorism and advocates for stronger laws and government policy to deter terrorists, there have been 36 vehicle attacks specifically linked to terrorists since 2006. Those attacks have killed at least 196 people and injured 1,050.

The Extremism Project noted that a 2010 al-Qaeda publication contained an article calling for vehicular attacks and referred to a pickup truck as a potential “mowing machine” that could be used to “mow down the enemies of Allah.”

In a December 2010 memo, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security warned that “vehicle ramming offers terrorists with limited access to explosives or weapons an opportunity to conduct a homeland attack with minimal prior training or experience.”

Canada has not escaped such attacks.

In October 2014, Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent was killed in Quebec when Martin Rouleau deliberately ran the Canadian soldier down. Another soldier was injured.

Rouleau was killed by police after a high-speed chase, but the RCMP suspect he had become radicalized after converting to Islam.

Days later, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau shot and killed a soldier at the war memorial in Ottawa and then attacked Parliament Hill. Zehaf-Bibeau, a drug addict who had embraced radical Islam, was killed during that attack.

Since then, the terrorist threat level has been set at medium. The federal government says that the principal terrorist threat to Canada continues to be that posed by violent extremists who are inspired by violent Islamist ideology, and terrorist groups such as Daesh and al-Qaeda.

The security measures that have been in place over the last three years aren’t visible to the public but government agencies and security forces continue to monitor the movement and communications of suspected extremists.

Andrew McKelvey, a spokesman for the Department of National Defence, said the security stance of the Canadian Forces has not changed as result of the Toronto incident, but he did not get into details.